Never Go Full Toronto: The Maple Leafs Saved Their Most Pathetic Performance For Game 7 At Home

Michael Chisholm. Getty Images.

There's almost nothing in sports harder to shake than a culture of losing. Once a team, or a player, has been deemed a loser, they are almost entirely losers for the rest of time. Very few teams or players have ever been able to break through and turn the narrative around. Ovechkin finally won a Cup, but it was the only time the Capitals have been past the 2nd round of the playoffs in his career. The New York Jets are always going to be the goddamn New York Jets. And just so everyone understands that it takes one to know one, Joel Embiid and the Sixers will never be able to string together enough wins in the playoffs to even give themselves a chance at winning a Championship. 

The Toronto Maple Leafs are losers. They have great players, but the culture of losing is so embedded into their DNA that there was never a chance in hell that they'd come out on top of a game 7 last night against the defending Stanley Cup Champions. The Florida Panthers know how to put series away. The Toronto Maple Leafs, on the other hand, are so overcome by pressure and the fear of losing, that they don't have the ability to focus on winning a hockey game. Their mindset is to "not lose" the game. 

But even if you knew deep in your soul that the Leafs weren't going to win that game last night, I don't know if anybody was fulling expecting this. 

The beginning of the game looked like Toronto was purposefully giving Florida every opportunity to take over the game right from the start. Maybe they were subconsciously trying to make sure they didn't blow a big lead in a game 7 or something. The ice was tilted, and I don't think Toronto touched the puck for the first 5 or so minutes. 

Now, sure, the Leafs started to get some chances here and there. You could make the argument that if they caught a couple extra breaks and got a few more saves, this game could have been way closer than the final score made it out to be. 

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But there's a reason why the Florida Panthers were able to capitalize on their chances, and the Leafs couldn't catch a single break. There's a reason why this game was such a shit pumping. And that's because the Florida Panthers are winners, and the Toronto Maple Leafs are losers. The Leafs don't have a single guy on their roster who can step up in those big moments and score the goal the team so desperately needs to get themselves going. They have guys like Marner who will bark at the bench for everyone to wake up. 

They have guys like Auston Matthews who will claim the Leafs had too many "passengers" in that game. 

Not realizing that himself and Marner are supposed to be the ones driving this bus. Maybe it's not fair to put all the pressure on two guys like that. But it's the way it goes. You get paid to drive the bus, you don't get to be upset when nobody else ends up manning the wheel. 

That's what a culture of losing does to a team. Instead of having a group of guys who are all hungry to make that big play themselves, you have a group of guys all looking around at each other waiting to see who is going to step up. If everybody is waiting on somebody else to step up, then nobody steps up. Which has brought the Toronto Maple Leafs to this point. 

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It's pretty clear that the Leafs crumble under pressure. And each time they lose a game 7, they stack that pressure onto the next one. Maybe last night's performance wasn't so shocking when you really think about it. 

P.S. -- He gone. 

@JordieBarstool